Tagan TG1100-U95 1100W Power Supply

There are a handful of 8800GTX certified power supplies, today we take a look at one that's been hit with a bit of controversy recently and see if there's more to it than certain people think there is.

Introduction

Power requirements are spiraling up with each release of high end graphics cards. The 6800 Ultra required two molex connectors the 7800GTX actually used a bit less but the 7900GTX pushed the wattage up further as did the 7950GX2. Now the 8800GTX pushes that requirement even further with the highest wattage requirement to date, in fact it's so high that there are just a few PSU's that are capable of feeding an 8800GTX SLI setup. The Tagan TG 1100 U95 is one of those that has been certified by nVidia as meeting their criteria for SLI 8800GTX action.

Recently certain sites have been poo-pooing the Turbo Jet 1100 stating that the design won't handle more than 800 watts and that based upon the failure of a unit at 680 watts on the 12V rails it is indeed a fact that it's not capable of it's rated wattage. I say doo-doo occurs. So one site got a bad unit, so what? If we tried to claim that, based on the failure of one unit, any given model of PSU was garbage there would be no power supplies on the market capable of running at their rated wattage. crap happens, things break and people "in the know" often think that they know more than they really do.

I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I believe what my eyes show me and I just love proving that what someone says is an impossibility is possible. Will I prove that today? Read on and find out.

Record-breaking: Over 1000 Watt for Quad GFX engines and multi-core server systems. The TurboJet Series offers solutions for high-end gaming, video design, and server applications.

For a more complete look at what the TJ 1100 has to offer you can read the data sheet on Tagan's site.

The TJ 1100 comes in a briefcase (for lack of a better word) with a cardboard cover. The cover features the usual full color graphics trumpeting the features and ratings of the unit.

The rear of the box features a spiel about the features and benefits of the unit and why you should buy it, nothing out of the ordinary here and the norm for any product seeking to part you from your hard earned dollar.

Closer Look

The other side panel shows the various connectors. There's 10-SATA, 3+1-molex, 8 pin EPS, 4 pin ATX 12V and a 20+4 ATX. Yes, I know that the molex count is weak but you get 4-SATA to molex converters, yes, that's right, they're the reverse of what you're used to seeing. Instead of making a molex work with SATA devices this makes SATA connectors work with devices requiring molex connectors. This future proofs the unit for SATA devices when they become the norm but also allows for the support of the current (and past) crop of ATA and EIDE devices along with peripherals that use molexes for power. Along with the adaptors for the molex connectors there's also a molex to dual floppy converter for those of you that need a floppy drive.

Inside the box is the PSU, the manual (not pictured) and a box containing the power cord and accessories. you get the SATA to molex adapters, the molex to floppy adapter and screws and a couple of zip-ties and velcro straps for keeping unused cables neatly out of the way.

Here's a closer look at the SATA to molex adapter. Yes it's a bit on the largish size but it works just fine with molexes that are as close together as 1/4".

The PCI-e connectors are on the largish side as well, some have run into fit problems with the 8800GTX due to the closeness of the power plugs on the cards and the oversized nature of the plugs on the power cords. I'm sure that shaving a bit off the plug jackets won't void your warranty as long as you don't cut all the way through. The cables are sleeved in a white weave with a smoke colored transparent plastic jacket. There's also a choke on the PCI-e lines to help lower noise to your cards.

The EPS and ATX 12V cables are also sleeved in the same manner as the PCI-e cables, though, they don't feature the chokes found on the PCI-e cables.

Now, in the list of connectors I listed 3+1 for the molex connectors, here's the +1. The TJ 1100 has a connector designed to be used with the older AGP cards that require a molex connector. I think this would be a boon to users with water pumps due to the choke mounted on it, that choke can help to prevent any line noise generated by a 12V pump from being transmitted to your hard drives. As you can see it also shares the same sleeving as CPU and PCI-e cables.

The rest of the cables are sleeved with a more standard mesh with molded plastic ferrules rather than heat shrink terminating the sleeving. The sleeving stops at the first connector on the line and the wires are bare from there on out. Note that they're twisted so they're still neat although I'm sure that over time they'll lose the twist if steps aren't taken to keep them that way. I'd like to see them zip-tied at the very least to help combat untwisting.

Here's a look at the SATA to molex adaptor mounted on the SATA plug. They look a bit on the cheesy side but they do the job.

The 20+4 ATX is unusual in the the +4 pins are sleeved separately from the rest. Sadly they're zip-tied to the ATX cable but that's just a matter of cutting the zip tie and tucking that part out of the way if need be.

Closer Look Cont., Testing

Looking at the side of the TJ 1100 we see the table listing the rails along with the claimed sound output. Tagan claims a sound level of 28db at full load, I'm afraid that it's a bit on the optimistic side.

The front of the TJ 1100 has an 80mm X 25mm pusher fan. I think they use the thicker fan up front so that the unit muffles the sound at higher output.

The rear of the unit has a unique 80mm X 15mm dimpled fan. The dimpling is supposed to help lower noise by preventing the wind from shearing off the fan blade. The dimples create a cushion of air over the moving fan blades and breaks up the boundary layer of air on them.

Opening up the unit reveals a pair of large hollow tubular extruded heatsinks. These are pretty unusual but should be very effective for keeping the unit from losing it's composure at high loads.

The primary side of the features a pair of 1200mFD 200V caps. I know, you're thinking "Wait a tick, it's supposed to be compatible with 220V input." Well, it is, if you run caps in series it cuts the total capacitance in half but doubles the working voltage. This allows for use of smaller diameter caps since the higher the voltage the larger the girth of the cap. It's a design compromise that won't have a negative effect on the overall circuit.

Looking at the secondary side of the TJ 1100 there's not terribly much to see. The wiring blocks the view for all but a few components. There is a trim pot by the fan plugs but I suspect that with it's proximity to the fan circuitry it is responsible for tuning the cooling in some fashion. It could use a bit better tuning but I'll get into that in a minute. But first on to the numbers, shall we?

Test	3.3V	5V	12V1	12V2	12V3	12V4	Watts	Efficiency
1	3.37V 5A	5.22V 5A	12.28V 2A	12.28V 2A	12.28V 2A	12.28V 2A	157W	73%
2	3.35V 8A	5.20V 8A	12.26V 5A	12.26V 5A	12.26V 5A	12.26V 5A	416W	79%
3	3.32V 10A	5.18V 12A	12.20V 9.5A	12.20V 9.5A	12.20V 9.5A	12.20V 9.5A	574W	74%
4	3.30V 11A	5.14V 14A	12.16V 12.5A	12.16V 12.5A	12.16V 12.5A	12.16V 12.5A	731W	80%
5	3.28V 14A	5.12V 17A	12.10V 17.5A	12.10V 17.5A	12.10V 17.5A	12.10V 17.5A	995W	78%

The voltages look really well and the efficiency numbers are far above what I was expecting. The ripple looked ok once I figured out a small issue. I'm sure you noticed that the voltage numbers were all the same on the 12V rails, the reason for this is that I had to run all four rails into an interface and tie all the rails together to make it compatible with my ATE. The side effect of this was ungodly ripple on the 12V rails, after a bit of experimenting I found it was from the rails being tied together.

Separately the ripple is at 40mV per rail at 17.5A load per rail. Not bad at all although I figure that all four rails loaded would be about 60mV. The 3.3Vand 5V rails were fine and never moved past 30mV under full load. Overall I'm rather impressed, especially due to the fact I read it'll "never do 800W on the 12V rail" or something to that effect. It looks like someone was wrong.

Final Thoughts

Now, I mentioned the fan noise earlier. Tagan claims that the TJ 1100 puts out 28db at full load, I'd wager that the SM 268 is in the area of 50db when it's cooling fan kicks in if not more. During test five the TJ 1100 was loud enough that it drowned the SM 268 out. The air coming from the PSU was at such velocity that I could feel it from over three feet away from the rear of the PSU.

Anyone familiar with 80mm fans knows that for you to get that kind of air flow from a fan that size means you're going to be creating quite a bit of noise. I must say though that the dimpling on the rear fan must help as it didn't have any sort of high pitched whine commonly associated with smaller fans at high flow levels. It just made the normal air rushing sound so that's a bit of a plus. Under more normal operating conditions the sound was tolerable although still louder than units possessing 120mm and up fans.

I'm not a huge fan of the plastic coated cables. They're stiff and make trying to bundle the unused cables away in the case a total pain in the neck. I'd really like to see the plastic scrapped and a traditional sleeving used to make it a bit more user friendly. Aside from that the TJ 1100 is a pretty decent PSU and compared to it's direct competition isn't as unwieldy as some of the units out there. It's only 7" long so it's more likely to be a choice for users with smaller cases than some other models on the market today.

The Tagan Turbo Jet TG 1100 U95 seems to be the perfect compliment for power hungry 8800GTX SLI systems but there are better choices out there. It's not that I dislike the TJ 1100, it's a decent unit but there are bigger negatives to it than there are positives. Yes, it held up under everything I could throw at it but it really dislikes having the 12V rails combined and with 8800GTX SLI you're more likely to end up combining 12V3 and 12V4 than not since Tagan doesn't list the rail separation in their manual. Most of us would assume that PCI-e 1 & 2 are on one rail and 3 & 4 are on another.

Wrong, in fact, the odd numbered PCI-e connectors are on rail 3 while the even numbered connectors are on rail 4. This means that due to the TJ 1100's increasing ripple with the rails combined hooking up the PCI-e cards in what would seem to be a sensible manner could result in higher ripple going to your uber expensive graphics cards. Not good at all. The cables are another major sticking point for me.

I don't like having a huge wad of stuff to hide away and face it, unless you're building a super computer, you're not going to use every cable coming out of this PSU. That means you have several thick, stiff cables to contend with and it makes it difficult to keep your PC neat with this honking big wad of cables that you can't tuck away. Not to mention that making sharp bends is also a major issue. With that said I'm awarding the TG 1100 U95 a 6/10 and hoping that my complaints don't fall on deaf ears.

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